Super Moderator

Hello and welcome! We're moving into the stat poll of CAP 3, which will certainly define how this Pokemon functions within OU.

Please remember that this poll operates on IRV voting, the details of which are outlined here. This means that you can upvote your favorite typing and downvote your least favorite. Be aware that order does matter in your votes! The first line is your favorite, the last line is your least favorite. Make sure that you bold your votes and nothing else! A typical vote might look like the following:

Most PreferredSecond Most PreferredLeast Preferred

Any comments that the voter has would go below the votes in non-bold text. Bold text is used to determine what the user's votes are, so none of the supplementary text should be in bold.

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Please post only your votes in this thread. If you are feeling the need to have a discussion, then head on over to #cap. There are consequences if you are looking to spark a discussion here. Again, please leave all discussion to #cap. Thanks for your understanding!

This poll will be open for 24 hours. Deck Knight will edit his slate into this post when the time limit for Stat Submissions is complete.

Starting with the 60/140/120 bulk I feel is a very important decision to make. (To read about 60 HP, which differentiates mine, scroll down.) I'm of the opinion that Physical Bulk should be impressive. This is in order to be able to live through un-STABbed Super Effective physical moves and STABbed neutral moves (Stone Edge and Outrage predominantly.) Meanwhile, should CAP3 run max/max+ Special Defense, barring Earth Powers, Psychics and Psyshocks (the relevant Super Effective Special moves), CAP3 is quite safe on the Special side. Things like Specs/Life Orb Draco Meteors from Latios are obviously still threatening, but they SHOULD BE. CAP3 already has a strong niche carved out with countering Rain teams very well. It should not be capable of defeating an entire Rain team by itself however. It must feel at least somewhat threatened by things like Specs Tornadus' Hurricane, which does 55.86 - 66.04% to a max/max+ special defense CAP3 and Dragonite's Hurricanes and Jolteon/Rotom-W Thunders, which do less. These are the only special moves on a typical rain team that should threaten CAP3 at all. Notably, they are all EXCELLENT opportunities to switch in a Tyranitar to change the weather. The reason this is so relevant is that it is proof CAP3 doesn't even need to care too much about its special bulk in the niche it provides of countering Rain. Against about half of the opposing team it won't matter because of Dry Skin and good resistances. My spread might look like unsatisfactory special bulk, but I really can't stress enough that against Rain Stall, CAP3 doesn't need serious Special Bulk hardly at all and against Rain Offense, WE WANT IT TO NOT BE ABLE TO DEFEAT RAIN AS A WHOLE. Spreads with special bulk of 80/114, 100/100, and 120/89 feel exorbitant to me. There is no need to take on Jolteon and Tornadus better. Indeed, those are the perfect chances to switch in Tyranitar and change the weather. As for functioning on a Rain team itself, CAP3 is more likely to be threatened Physically than Specially. This is why the Physical bulk is so important.

Due to Resistances and Dry Skin, CAP3 can afford to, and should, invest in Physical bulk. If invested fully, this bulk is so good that CAP3 is almost guaranteed to not have Subs even 2HKOed by something relatively weak, like Specially Defensive Jirachi's Body Slam. Toxicroak, something that also might be seen on a Rain team, fails to hit for 25% as well. Sucker Punch hits for only 14.81 - 17.59%. But the key here is how well CAP3 takes neutral and resisted Physical hits. CB Scizor notably fails to break the 25% barrier as well. Smogon Standard Mixed Attacking and Specially Defensive TTars that often lack Stone Edge would always fail to break a sub from CAP3 with Crunch. The KEY to CAP3's overall succes in the OU/CAP metagame is the ability to capitalize on it's resistances to make up for it's SR weakness. A Physical bulk like 60/140 enables CAP3 to switch in quite easily on very threatening moves. For example, CAP3, if being used on a Rain team itself, can work as a check to Fighting types.

If CAP3 is being run defensively on a Rain team itself, it will be running Protect to get Dry Skin + Lefties Recovery. Just ask a Tentacruel. Therefore, Lefties CAP3 will heal 25% between being hit and being hit again, after 1 turn of protect-stall. This means that with Protect-Stalling under Rain, even after taking Rocks damage, CAP3 is still 2HKOed by Max Attack Conkeldurr Stone Edge. Similarly, with Protect-Stalling under Rain, even after Rocks, CAP3 has a chance to not be 2HKOed by Jolly Scarf Terrakion Stone Edge, not to mention the frequent missing.

The reason for having such good Physical bulk is that it means a 252/252+ CAP3 under Rain would not become useless at 50% health even with Rocks up. CAP3 can still switch in and survive a Jolly Scarf Terrakion Close Combat, heal from lefties and Rain, and potentially survive another, even without Protect-Stalling, depending on min-max damage.

It's this kind of general bulk that is necessary to truly take advantage of all of CAP3's resistances.

Finally, to briefly answer the question about the low base HP that I'm sure you are all wondering about. 324 HP max gives defensive CAP3 the capability of POSSIBLY LOSING to Chansey/Blissey under rain, where with lefties and Dry Skin, CAP3 is recovering 40 HP per turn, not mentioning Protect. Thunder Wave, naturally, could pose a problem for CAP3. Once paralyzed, CAP3 would have a very small percent chance of managing to stall out the blob's Seismic Tosses. The basic point of this is to force defensive CAP3 into running Will-o-Wisp/Toxic/Lava Plume/Scald in order to outstall Blissey, if CAP3 gets no recovery itself. This I don't think is an unfair burden.

However if CAP3 is to run a different kind of set, maybe Offensive Calm Mind, if it gets it, of course, CAP3 has a minimum 261 HP, would recover only 32 HP per turn from Rain + Lefties, and would CERTAINLY lose before being able to set up in any meaningful way.

The secondary reason for doing this is that this would make Pain Split a viable recovery option for CAP3. Often we comment on reliable recovery and are hesitant to give anything Recover without serious consideration. Pain Split is a bit less of an issue, most of the time. (All that follows is perhaps poll-jumping, but I do think it is necessary to talk about a few individual moves to highlight points in a Stat Spread.) Indeed Rotom-A have 50/107/107 defenses and Pain Split and Weezing has 65/120/70 defenses and Pain Split, yet in neither case does Pain Split prove to truly be reliable recovery. Instead, I'm very curious to push the limits. I would love to see if Pain Split could be reliable, without being broken, on a Pokemon with 60/140/120 and Dry Skin.

One benefit of the Dry Skin ability is that CAP3 under Rain can basically run a Life Orb for almost no cost. The result of this with the 105 base Special Attack is that CAP3 can deter certain things from switching in. Offensive DD Dragonite have a chance to be 2HKOed even through Multiscale, meaning you might be able to catch one and KO it if it Dragon Dances on what it assumes is a switch due to the threat of EQ. However, CAP3 cannot expect to deal with things like CB Dragonite without running HP Ice, which I think is good. The Special Attack is also such that we can give CAP3 a boosting move like Calm Mind if we want, without fear of just creating a bulky set-up sweeper. As for the Physical Attack, I chose 61, as I want to maintain a potential Coil Set as potentially viable, should CAP3 be given Coil. 61 is the example of the lowest base stat in OU that is ever intentionally raised by a specific set, DD Tyranitar. (I suppose this also keeps Shell Smash as a possibility, if we for some reason want to go down that route.) For example, a set of Coil/Substitute/Gunk Shot/Aqua Tail - very speculative, I know - could potentially work on a Rain team. The neat thing about this kind of set is that while the list of Pokemon who can take it defensively once CAP3 gets one Coil off or a Sub set up (Ferrothorn, Tentacruel, Jellicent, Gastrodon, Toxicroak, Forretress, Skarmory, and more sort of) is HUUUGE, basically none can actually threaten CAP3 back.

Most importantly, I want to stress that we mostly seem to be submitting bulky spreads. There's no reason to need 125+ Special Attack to function in OU as a bulky Pokemon. Something in the ballpark of Vaporeon's 110 and the pixies' 100 seems more appropriate to me. I don't think we need to be giving such a high attacking power. It will only over-emphasize set-up sweeping instead of truly utilizing the advantage of Fire/Poison, which is predominantly defensive resistances.

I see Dusk explained his high Special Attack as being necessary to OHKO Scizor after Rocks through rain, etc... but the point of my spread is more so that Scizor won't be doing ANYTHING to CAP3. It can't even break a Sub. Same goes for Ferrothorn. I don't think we should be focusing on giving such a high special attack exclusively to beat things we already beat, but slightly faster.

As for Speed, I was at base 70 originally, to tie with many notable OU Pokemon. I have since changed my mind to be at base 71 to be able to always outspeed them if CAP3 needs to. Not a huge change, and I don't think I need to explain why I put CAP3 there much really, since many spreads lie in the 70-75 range.

Conclusion: My spread tries to focus on maintaining a realistic Special Attack stat of 108 for a Pokemon as bulky as 60/140/120. The Attack is low at 61, like others', but is high enough that a set-up could still be possible (as Tyranitar Dragon Dancing past it's Speed of 61 shows us). The Speed of 71 places me right in the middle with everyone else. I think that this set would enable us to explore specifically Pain Split to it's fullest extent, while also not limiting the ability to play offensively with either Coil or Calm Mind set up.

Finally, this set is intentionally NOT as amazing as possible, as some have tried to be, leaving open the doors for those who were/are in favor of Drought as a second/DW ability. Just think about it... Ninetales Fire Stab under Drought can hurt reasonably bad, and that's coming off of base 81 Special Attack. My 108 stays within reason of functioning ok without Drought's extra STAB support while simultaneously not becoming overly threatening should the bandwagon for Drought pick up pace.

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First and foremost, you will note that my CAP's defenses are exactly the same on both sides of the spectrum. There is a reason for this - I emphasized strongly in the Threats discussion that I wanted a CAP that was capable of posing a threat to many Fighting-type attackers, as that was one of the greatest merits of the Poison typing. My spread has a greater focus on physical defense where other spreads do not for these reasons. This CAP is capable of serving as an excellent check to quite a few Fighting-types with just max HP investment, with its great natural physical bulk. It is never ohko'd by max attack Conkeldurr's Stone Edge, and can take Mienshao's LO Stone Edge in a pinch, in case of a mispredict. It's also much better at switching into powerful STAB Fighting attacks - for example, CB Terrakion's Close Combat never 2hkos this CAP and, while we did state that Terrakion should be a threat, I am using that as a metric to point out that a spread with lower PT than mine will not satisfactorily exploit one of the primary perks of our typing: a fighting resistance. More interesting calcs:

So, simply put, we can survive even on a mispredicted switch, and generally have enough HP between Dry Skin and Leftovers (possibly with Protect!) to be in decent shape afterwards. Spreads with lower physical tankishness do not accomplish this, and I feel that checking Fighting types is an important aspect of this CAP.

Note that this spread does not sacrifice much special tankishness to accomplish this either - this spread has approximately as much as other, similar spreads. This level of special tankishness is required to take some of the stronger hits this CAP is liable to run into against rain teams, such as Rotom-W's Thunder and even Tornadus' Hurricane in a pinch, and it's certainly required to tank random HP Grounds from Jellicent / Tentacruel / Politoed. For reference, we only take 51.6% - 61.5% from Support Politoed's HP Ground. Now, you might be saying, "this still takes a lot of damage from those!" Well...that's where our offensive stats come in. I didn't go with extreme special tankishness like some of the other spreads, because I wanted to focus this towards bulky offense (taking a hit and doing massive damage back) instead of giving it enough defensive acumen that I would have to nerf its offensive ability.

I am using a lower HP / higher defenses spread because I want to encourage maxing out or investing substantially in HP and SpA, but I didn't go with something like 50/130 because I wanted things to be efficient for sets that do go all out on the defense.

TLDR: I included much more physical defense than others to take advantage of a valuable niche our poison typing offers us.

Justification for offenses:

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All right, so I am sure that the 135 base SpA, the highest of anything posted here, jumped out at people immediately. I am going to argue that we need every bit of that power. Remember, our primary STAB is probably going to be Poison against bulky waters. The strongest special poison move in Sludge Wave, at just 95 BP. Let's look at some calcs:

252+ Leftovers Sludge Wave v. 252/0 Politoed: 45.6% - 53.9%

We're looking at a barely-guaranteed 2hko here, with our current level of power. Remember Politoed's HP Ground calcs from above? Yup - we need this power to avoid losing to some dumb HP Ground Politoed.

Okay, now for the other stuff. The base speed is lower than Heatran's and Dragonite's, but higher than Politoed's, Breloom's, Conkeldurr's, Scizor's, and other things we should be able to counter. 75 is the perfect spot to put it for these reasons. The base attack is 60 because, while I love the idea of a Coil set, Gunk Shot is bad without the accuracy boost (which means our best STAB on sets that don't involve Coil would be...Poison Jab), Flare Blitz has recoil, and we'd need to make this thing weigh 8999 pounds if we want Heat Crash to do anything. I had to pick my Poison (get it? :3) and I went with a special-offense set for more overall versatility. That said, I didn't make it a total dump stat by giving it like base 30 atk. Base 60 is just enough to make a Coil set usable. I didn't want to make Coil too viable, because it allows us to get past our counters pretty easily (with a higher attack, we could actually 2hko Terrakion with +1 Gunk Shot, while it would fail to 2hko us back with Scarf Stone Edge).

TLDR: I gave this thing an exceptional attacking stat because it needs every bit of power against bulky waters and other specially-defensive threats, especially when running a defensive set itself, decided against mixed due to mediocre Poison STAB options, give it low speed so it's beaten by offensive heatran and dragonite and also so I could get away with the lol135SpA. We also need high SpA to beat powerful offensive threats before they can beat us.

Other things of note:

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This does ride the limits of the BSR rating, but I feel it's justified, because I envision this CAP having a choice between being an extremely powerful offensive threat that can take hits moderately well from both sides of the spectrum, or a moderately powerful offensive threat that can take hits very well from one specific side of the spectrum while taking them moderately well from the other. To accomplish this, it needs excellent stats. Given that we're trying to take a mediocre typing and turn it into an OU-viable mon, I feel like higher stats are justified.

I didn't include a lot of defensive calcs because...well, I'm not a defensive player, and this was already long enough. If you want some idea of what this can take, think "heatran".

Speaking of defenses, 80/110/110 is actually inefficient from a BSR perspective - something like 105 / 93 / 93 would lower BST and BSR while offering more defense. However, I didn't go with higher HP / lower defense spreads because a) I felt like it was gaming the system b) as I explained earlier, lower HP / higher defense spreads offer more value for maxing HP.

Before I say anything else, note that this is perhaps the most uneven stat spread you will ever see me submit or support. Three whole stats are not divisible by 5. It took every ounce of my willpower to click "Submit Reply". Every stat is specially tailored for the purposes of this CAP, however, and thus I need you to bear with me and hear me out.

I was originally going to type up a super massive post before this thread was put up so that I could submit this spread first because I knew that others had similar things going. Instead, I've been working a lot and haven't had the time. That said, I am going to present my spread regardless because it is different in key ways from other spreads that make my spread objectively superior where it really counts. Hopefully by the end of this post, you'll agree with me.

Speed:

I jump to the discussion on Speed because it is the most relevant to every spread right now, and I do not think any other Speed stat besides 76 is acceptable. This is because our threats list specifically lists offensive Heatran as threatening CAP 3 while defensive Heatran as threatened by CAP 3. This hinges mostly on Heatran's usage of Earth Power, but is also contributed to by offensive Heatran running max Speed Timid. Bulky Heatran use Speed EVs sufficient to beat all Adamant Scizor (229), meaning they hit 230. This means that we want the maximum Speed stat that we can have in order to reduce the EVs necessary to beat defensive Heatran's typical Speed while not outspeeding max Timid Heatran (or tying it). 76 Speed is the only Speed stat that achieves this.

The result of this is that my spread requires 172 Speed EVs to beat the typical specially defensive Heatran set. Give or take several sets of 4 for purposes of beating slightly faster variants, this Speed hustle results in 336 EVs for use elsewhere in CAP 3's spread, distributed to bulk or offense and thus maximizing CAP 3's usable EVs.

I do not think that Speed-tying Dragonite or any other logic is as relevant as what I have presented above, and hope that you agree with me.

Offensive Capacity:

Assuming the 172 Speed EVs I discussed above and 248 HP EVs for maximized overall bulk with minimum investment (while being able to switch into SR 5 times), this leaves 88 EVs for use elsewhere. Assuming that these are put into SpA, it will become clear why I made 131 the SpA stat. (This means that the EV spread is 248 HP / 88 SpA / 172 Spe)

You will notice two key points here. Scizor is always OHKOed after SR and standard Ferrothorn is always 2HKOed after Leftovers recovery. This means that CAP 3 can safely utilize Lava Plume to scare incoming physical attackers while still achieving the base requirements of its Fire-type STAB against rain teams. Note that 130 (and lower) SpA does not achieve this 2HKO against Ferrothorn given 88 SpA investment and a +SpA nature. Note again that this all changes if CAP 3 runs different EVs, runs Flamethrower, its targets run more special bulk, or what-have-you. What's important to take away from this is that this stat spread guarantees that Lava Plume can be used successfully even against rain teams on a relevant competitive EV spread. You're not forced to run Fire Blast or Flamethrower unless you want to, and that's something that will be valued by CAP 3.

Note that CAP 3's physical prowess is essentially a non-issue because its physical options are substantially inferior to its special options within and without its STABs. For what it is trying to achieve, particularly against Pokemon like Jellicent and Politoed which typically invest heavily in Defense, it should be focusing on its special offense.

Bulk:

95/83/105 bulk is good for quite a few reasons. It targets special bulk in order to more adequately take on Pokemon like Jellicent, Tentacruel, and Politoed. You will, of course, ask what relevance the 83 Def stat has, to which I respond:

0 Sassy Tyranitar Stone Edge
_vs. 248/0 Modest CAP 3: 82.4% - 97.7%
​

The same spread I've been discussing is tailored specifically to be KOed by a 0 EV investment mixed attacking Tyranitar Stone Edge after Leftovers recovery and SR damage. Technically, 84 Def would've also worked, but this makes the BST work out to a pretty number, helping my OCD self not be too butthurt. 95/105 special bulk achieves excellent special tankiness against the likes of Jellicent and others, but is mostly tailored to maximize at the following calculation:

This means that Gastrodon can KO you regardless of its Ground-type attack and with at least 1 layer of spikes up, not too much to ask when Ferrothorn and Skarmory are such common teammates for it. This helps the neutral balance of Gastrodon and CAP 3 switching into each other.

Conclusion:

My spread achieves very key calculations against key Pokemon that are very relevant to the way CAP 3 will eventually operate in and against rain. I think that it achieves these thresholds the best of every spread submitted thus far, and hope that my presentation has made that clear to you. Cheers, and good luck to every spread submitter regardless.

This spread is a Special Tank that can attack from both ends of the spectrum, but has to watch out for Super Effective physical attacks.

Defenses: 120/65/95The primary reason for this defensive spread is that the special defense is pretty strong even with no investment in bulk, but the defense is highly reliant on investment to be strong. This is highly influenced by the fact that all of the pokemon on our "threatens" list are specially oriented, and most of the pokemon on our "threatened by" list are physical. The minimum special bulk with this spread is 384 HP / 226 SpD, which isn't a wall but is plenty to make use of the insane spread of resistances we have against rain offense. As such, this spread will always shut down the pokemon on our "threatens" list, no matter what EV's are being used. The defense not terrible, however; A 0/0 CAP3 can still always counter Swords Dance Scizor in the Rain, even with Stealth Rock up. The defense can be invested in and paired with Will-o-Wisp to great effect against many physical attackers, without quite shutting down the pokemon on our "threatened by" list. The high HP makes various tradeoffs possible in terms of EV spreads, particularly when mixing offensive and defensive EV's. It is necessary in order to have the high SpD, high variability in Def, and overall bulk at the same time.

Offenses 90/125/60

The speed is very low for a CAP, but I dont think we really need speed to fulfill the concept and stay true to our threat list. Underspeeding Tyranitar goes along with our threat list, and underspeeding defensive Water-types doesn't really change our performance against them much. I don't see underspeeding defensive Heatran as that much of a problem, since the defensive set typically only runs Lava Plume to attack. If we have a lower base speed than Heatran, a surprise Earth Power will always be a concern. Rather than kick off a speed creep arms race between us and defensive Heatran, I think it is ok to concede to Earth Power Heatran and focus stats elsewhere. The current defensive spread survives an Earth Power from defensive Heatran with 252 HP EV's anyway.

The SpA is very high because I am forseeing the use of Sludge Bomb and non-STAB attacks over Fire attacks (due to our synergy with/ability against Rain). As such, a great special attack stat seemed appropriate in order to make Sludge Bomb legitimately scary to non-Steels after a +1 boost. Even uninvested the special attack reaches 429 after a boost. The attack was kept in a "useable" range in order to take advantage of our high SpD and Coil. The low speed is somewhat of a bummer against SD Scizor, but we can still counter it and speed largely irrelevant when switching into U-turn or Bullet Punch. In exchange for speed, this stat spread keeps physical and special attacking options open without sacrificing bulk. This spread is versatile, true to our threat list, and should be a force to be reckoned with.

Here's an idea of where this spread sits compared to others right now:

High ST: less than 2 points under the cutoff and able to take some Super Effective STAB attacks that other spreads can't.
Low PT: Will require some investment in HP to survive Stone Edges from Scarf Tyranitar, Terrakion, and Landorus. A 252/252+ spread is 3HKOed by Stone Edges from Burned opponents (unless they have Choice Bands).
High Attack: (90) much lower than BMB's and much higher than everyone else's. This is meant to take advantage of potential physical options such as Gunk Shot, Flare Blitz, and Coil.
High Special Attack: (125) With the SpA stats ranging from 105 to 135, this one sits in the upper middle. Uninvested Fire Blast will 2HKO the most specially defensive Ferrothorn in the Rain, while Modest and 68 EV's are required to always OHKO after a Storm Drain Boost. This spread has the second highest combined Atk and SpA.
Low Speed: (60) Tied for lowest. We underspeed Tyranitar and tie with Jellicent.

When I started building this spread I wanted to emphasise a defensive build over an offensive one, while still retaining enough offensive power to constitute a legitimate threat, rather than just sitting there like a lame duck. With the above defensive ability, attackers such as Tyranitar and Alakazam are just capable of OHKOing with their STAB moves, assuming no investment in defensive EVs, while we are not 2HKOed by Choice Specs Starmie's Thunderbolt, assuming one round of SR damage and Dry Skin + Leftovers healing. We can't survive a single Ground-type attack - not even Ferrothorn's Bulldoze.

On the other hand, once we start investing we get some interesting results. A spread of 252 HP / 252+ SpD, for sake of argument, gives us a high chance of surviving two rounds of Choice Specs Tornadus's Hurricane, assuming Dry Skin and Leftovers healing in addition to coming in with max health, which is rather good for something that doesn't resist it. Admittedly we cannot OHKO with unboosted Thunderbolt or Thunderpunch without Stealth Rock, and even with, it's slim as can be - but this is demonstrative of the defensive ability capable. With Dry Skin taken for granted we are taking a pittance from the attacks of more important foes, such as Rotom-W (max. 21% from unboosted Volt Switch, for reference).

The bulk is the same on both sides for sake of necessity of choice. CAP3 has the potential to wall threats on both sides equally well, not simply those of rain teams - and it cannot afford to take a high-powered super effective attack regardless of its EVs, so blocking things that we agreed would counter it is not a problem here.

First, the Speed. I am adamant that this thing ought to be slower than Tyranitar. There are a number of reasons for this - so that Tyranitar acts as a proper counter, in the event of us giving it a move that hits it for super effective damage, which is rather likely, so that it does not become a powerful sweeper with the aid of Speed-boosting moves (see DDtar, which is perfectly balanced and powerful), to encourage investment in defensive and offensive EVs, and so that, if we did happen to give this thing Drought, we'd get the sun up first (hup hup huzzah).

Next, the attacking stats. Now, I see that most people have chosen to favour the special attacking end - and that's fine. The Fire-type is perhaps unique in that it grants benefits to both the physical and special ends - on the physical side, there's the immunity to burn, which is always valuable (after all, even a burned Ferrothorn is a much weaker Ferrothorn), and on the special side, access to all manner of powerful moves. I firmly believe that we can take advantage of both of these, but more importantly, that we can offer the user the opportunity to use one or the other or even both, so as to make full use of the typing.

With no investment at all into either end, neither physical nor special STAB is really powerful enough to break bulky Water-types. Thus the following calculations assume some form of coverage move that hits them for super effective damage.

Offensive Capacity: Basing this entirely on the pokemon CAP3 is supposed to threaten, this offensive spread gives CAP3 the ability to 2hko 252/0 Politoed with a LO boosted Sludge Wave while Politoed can't do anything back, esentially allowing CAP3 to switch in on Politoed scot-free and threaten. Tentacruel won't be able to do much against CAP3 beyond spinning as CAP3 will absorb water moves and not give a hoot otherwise. Offensively, CAP3 can 2hko 252/0 Tenta after Stealth Rock Damage with HP Ground. Jellicent is really the only missing piece but CAP3 will still win out in the defensive prospect (meaning I'll get to it there).

Defensive Capacity:Starting off with the previously mentioned Jellicent, this spread won't be able to kill Jellicent with offensive power (unless it gets something absurd like Thunderbolt or Giga Drain). However unless Jelli is specs'd, this spread will totally wall Jellicent's Shadow Ball UNINVESTED (20.6% - 24.5%) and be able to toxic stall it with a recovery move like Pain Split or Morning Sun / Moonlight. Beyond this the mons that totally threaten CAP3 will definitely still be able to beat CAP3 with this spread. 0 Atk Ttar will do about 82% max to this spread with Stone Edge while CAP3 won't be able to do more than 33% back unless CAP3 gets an absurd move (please lord don't give it Focus Blast or Aura Sphere @_@). This alone means that the other prevalent threats will be able to keep CAP3 at bay and reliably force it out.

Speed Demon:I've thought about the idea that CAP3 should be able to threaten at least Modest Offensive Heatran, which sits at a speed of 253. CAP3 would need 192 Speed Evs and a Timid nature in order to outspeed, while also needing HP Ground in order to hit Balloon-less Heatran. With HP Ground and max Special Attack this spread has a chance to OHKO 0/0 modest Heatran (87.9% - 104%) while Heatran can cleanly OHKO back with Earth Power. This isn't exactly supporting Offensive Heatran as a threat, but 252 Spe+ CAP3 will always lose to Timid Heatran. CAP3 will also outspeed SpD Heatran with a little speed investment while being able to reliably 2hko with HP Ground (53.9% - 64.2%) keeping Heatran as a situational check. CAP3 will also only need 140 Speed EVs to outspeed 252 neutral Politoed and even less investment to outspeed Jellicent. Meanwhile Support Tenta gets outsped by 144+ CAP3, which is also a plus but not really needed since Tenta, Jelli and Poli can't do much to CAP3.

It was tempting for me to re-make Volcarona or Heatran for these stats, but I chose a different path that lies somewhere between the two in terms of playstyle so that it doesn't get outclassed by both. This spread aims to use a reliable defensive backbone and a manipulative Speed stat to get most of its work done in conjunction with the movepool, which I believe should be diverse if this Poke is to get any sort of foothold in OU (we've done a pretty good job of neutering its STAB effectiveness via typing and primary Ability, and Volcarona and Heatran are both adept enough at launching high-powered Fire moves for OU). The spread as a whole is pretty balanced compared to the others. Its offensive stats are less dramatic in order to emphasize Speed and coverage-based defensive viability instead of falling back on Hidden Power and enormous stats for raw power.

Offenses: 60/105/89

On their own, they're pretty dismal, I'll admit. I did this on purpose, however, to open CAP up to choosing the correct coverage options to defend itself against its most devastating checks (most threats are frail-ish or have 4x weaknesses). 60 Atk is unusable but not too low to intentionally fudge the numbers. I don't envision Flare Blitz or physical Fighting moves being real options here when we have a Stealth Rock weakness and immunity to Chansey/Blissey's Toxic. 105 SpA is just fine to take advantage of weather-based attack boosts and performs adequately on its own, when invested in (252 EVs, neutral nature). It can potentially nab 2HKOs on things like Vaporeon (46.88 - 55.36%) or defensive Politoed (46.87 - 55.2%) with SR and Thunderbolt, which isn't overpowered, imo, considering the investment it took to get to those results. It doesn't impact our threat list too much, though, as it'll take a Modest nature, 252 EVs, and a Life Orb to do substantial damage to SpDTar in Sand with even something like Focus Blast (77.22 - 91.08%, Scald/Energy Ball being the next best options at 25.74 - 30.69%). Uninvested, its 246 SpA stat is "just okay" for using those defensive attacks like Scald or Flamethrower in the Sun. Flamethrower by itself still OHKOs Ferrothorn with SR (93.18 - 110.22%), and something like Energy Ball would do respectable damage to offensive Rotom-W (47.1 - 56.19%) and Gastrodon (82.62 - 97.65%). SpDTar takes 43.56 - 51.48% from Focus Blast in Sand, with Energy Ball or Scald a distant second with 14.35 - 17.32%.

The primary draw here I think is the Speed stat. 89 Spe rests in a particularly sparse area of Speed tiers in OU. The 214-304 Spe range is one I think is worth exploring with a Pokemon like this, especially considering how so many crucial Pokemon like Heatran, Politoed, Mamoswine, Tentacruel, Gliscor, Rotom-W, Haxorus, Dragonite, Jirachi, and Celebi hang out in this neighborhood. All of their playstyles could be affected if CAP finds a way to check them. The faster 'mons like Gliscor and Jirachi may have to sacrifice bulk in exchange for Speed order to defeat CAP, and the slower ones may run faster EV spreads to pressure CAP to do the same. Conveniently enough, Timid Heatran outruns all neutral-Spe CAPs by a point, leaving it on the threatlist for defensive or Modest builds. Jolly Mamoswine and Timid Rotom-W outspeed neutral CAP as well, while on the flip side Haxorus, Landorus, and base 100s like Celebi and Salamence must run +Spe to guarantee being faster than Timid CAP. This could make a noticeable impact on how these Pokemon are used and how effective they are in the metagame. The Speed is also perfectly boostable; it can outrun Scarf Rotom-W at +1 or with a Scarf of its own (456 Spe w/ Timid) to help combat VoltTurn (hopefully with a good coverage move). 89 Spe is right at the top of the middle-slow area of OU, allowing CAP to choose how best to use Speed to handle the particular tank-ish and defensive threats it needs to handle, while at the same time tapping at the toes of the faster threats who neglect Spe out of a lack of necessity.

Defenses: 91/94/116

I thought for a while about what advantages this Poke ought to have defensively. At first, I looked at the list of resistances and planned on throwing all the stats into physical Defense, but I eventually came around to the idea of checking errant Volt Turns and Hurricanes and Draco Meteors and ended up maxing out on SpD as a result. I took the Heatran model of defensive Fire-type and tilted it toward the Special end, resulting in something more in line with SpD Jirachi, when invested. Tanking Special hits will be key to allowing this CAP to switch in to SR and accomplish something; it's prefect for setting up on the likes of Politoed and Starmie (unless both start running Psychic, otherwise Vaporeon or Jellicent will do, amongst others). Even with 252/252+, CAP falls to nearly every Earthquake in OU with SR damage, but at the same time it takes pittance from Scizor and Water-types that usually rely on Ice or Grass or Toxic for coverage.

Basically, defensive CAP can put up with a lot without being overwhelmingly wallish. From the SPD side, it's a little stronger than CalmTran and SpD Jirachi, but the spread leaves CAP more open to physical attacks in general, something that resistances and Burns can make up for.

Final Comments:

As I said earlier, I want CAP to really catch its niche in its diverse movepool, to make it stand out from the raw-damage, high output offensive Firemons of OU. This spread does its best to accomodate for strategic coverage options and for reliable STABs/statuses at the same time. It's more of an exercise in defensive finesse, as it has neither the ability to sweep nor wall but can still manage to make itself useful despite the faults of the typing. The SR weakness is going to limit CAP's time in battle much of the time, meaning switching in and out will be a burden on the CAP user; by making the CAP more of an urgent threat (higher Spe, tricky SE coverage), we are giving it a specific path to success without relying too much on any one element to "save" the typing (thus allowing later stages of CAP's design to further shape CAP's playstyle and effectiveness).

General Description: The idea here is to create a Pokemon who's typing, while normally considered poor defensively and/or offensively, becomes a strong selling point of the Pokemon itself via help from an ability, stats, and/or movepool.

Justification: There are a lot of typings we scoff at on a daily basis because of their serious flaws, often forgetting about their strong points. For example, Poison is a really terrible offensive typing, but a decent defensive typing, while the Ice typing is good offensively, but awful defensively. Instead of just accepting that some typings will just ruin a Pokemon, this CAP concept aims to take that "terrible typing", and find ways to fix it (usually via ability, movepool, or stats) to the point where the formerly terrible typing becomes the CAP's strong point! The reason this CAP could benefit OU is because a Pokemon who makes a "bad typing" into a great one could find many unique offensive and/or defensive niches that aren't currently found!

Questions To Be Answered

-What does it take for a Pokemon to overcome its "bad typing" so much that its typing becomes good? Are the stats the biggest contributer, is the ability the thing that saves it, does movepool make it a force, or is it a combination of the above?

-How does the typing makeover effect the Pokemon's playstyle? Does the Pokemon become a unique wall that uses its makeover to overcome its typing's normally fatal flaws, does the make over make a terrible offensive typing into a fearsome sweeper, does the makeover make it into a formidible combination of deffense and offense to a typing that brings it neither, or does the makeover bring forth something none of us see coming from the typing?

-Which resistances and immunities are the most relevant to the metagame? Sure, this concept is aiming to have a "bad typing" become good, but part of that will require the bad typing to have some key resistances and/or immunties to certain typings to defend against or set up on, while still having a very unorthodox competitive typing. This works the other way around too, what are the typings most relevant to hit super effectively or at least neutral?

-How will the rest of the OU metagame react to this extreme type makeover? Will Pokemon start carrying moves they normally wouldn't carry to break through a new defensive threat, will some Pokemon take on new defensive roles due to resisting the unorthodox STABs CAP 3 may carry? Or will This Pokemon, despite being a very real threat, not have many "custom made sets" to beat it, being more of a Pokemon that is a reaction to the metagame than causing a metagame reaction?

-Finally, how will this effect the teams CAP3 is on? Will this be the kind of Pokemon who needs a lot of support to become a threat, will this Pokemon be more of key team member to execute another strategy, or will this be the kind of Pokemon that's part of the glue that holds the team together?

Based on a sum-of-squares comparison with my spread's stat ratings :P (Actually it "sums up" my preferences quite well. I would prefer not to go for a relatively slow, low-offense angle to the extent of some of these submissions. Did people look at zomg STAB Fire and not realize that it does nothing for coverage moves?)

The are the only two I like at all other than mine. Speaking of which, it'd be nice to know why mine wasn't slated if that's not too much trouble. I got some good responses to it after people got past their initial knee-jerks to the high SpD, and I think it was pretty distinctly different from the other submissions. I'm not bitter about it not getting slated, I'd just like to know what your reasoning was.

I voted based on a few things. First of all, 76 base Speed is an absolutely critical number for our CAP to maximize its EV'd Speed without ever allowing it to beat out the likes of offensive Heatran. You'll notice that I voted based on how close a spread is to 76 Speed in the first few (FlareBlitz I downvoted because I think it's marginally stronger than CAP 3 needs to be). scoopapa's spread is decent, but lacks a bit of punch and has a bit more special bulk than I think is warranted. I think srk's is way too bulky in general (really, 60/140/120 is nearly as specially bulky as Necturna was, and almost twice as physically bulky). After that, I think Korski's gets the wrong idea by being way too fast and not strong enough to punch through bulky Water-types, and bugmaniacbob's is just outlandish with being so slow, so bulky, and mixed offensively. I don't think that's what we should have here.